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If I bought this, what type of DVD would someone recommend I buy to burn onto?

Stew

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What type of mech does IOMagic use? Newegg has been selling NEC 2500's for $80 (with free shipping, no rebates) for awhile now. And the NEC 2500 can be upgraded via 2510 firmware to burn on dual layer DVD+R9's.

BestBuy has the Lite On LDW-811S 8x DVD±RW/CD-RW Drive for $95 - $30 rebate = $65. The firmware can be updated to rip DVDs at 8x.

If you don't like rebates, Newegg has the NEC 2500A 8x DVD±RW drive for $81 shipped.

I wonder what's better: the NEC, the Lite-On, or the I/O Magic??????

Stew

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FREQUENT INQUIRIES:
YAMM: yet another meaningless milestone
SOAK: source of all knowledge
UMF: unseen mystical force
IBTL: in before the lock
curious about picture in picture on a directivo: DO A SEARCH FOR PIP
curious as to which universal remote is the best for tivo:DO A SEARCH FOR UNIVERSAL REMOTE.

The NEC has the best reputation of all the burners listed. The one for sale at newegg is rumored to be able to be upgraded to dual layer with a firmware update. The firmware update is not available yet, but supposedly in the near future you can change this drive from a single layer burner to a dual layer burner.

"If I bought this, what type of DVD would someone recommend I buy to burn onto?"

I have had good luck with several brands sold by MeritLine: BeAll, Samsung, Ritek, and their generic house brand - all available for less than $1, even in small quantities. Also, no problems with Memorex. The only brand I've had much trouble with is Princo, sometimes sold under aliases (such as "CD Technologies" at Amazon), or as the super-cheap bulk disks occasionally advertised by CC or BB with names you've never heard of.

All three are decent burners at good prices. FWIW, I've never, ever had a problem with a Staples rebate (that wasn't my own fault, like missing cutoff dates), so if you're patient it can be worth an extra $12. Of course, the other day I picked up a HSF locally knowing I could get it online with ground shipping for about $12 less, and it turned out I won't get around to building the PC before next week anyway!

With all that said, I would hold off on dual-layer for a while. I have no problem with either using two DVDs for a movie, or shrinking to fit on one. And most of what I burn fits on one anyway, at substantial savings compared to the new burners and non-existent media.

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i think i'm going to pick this up.
what are some good progs to let me make my own menus and stuff?

approximately what percentages of dvds can fit on one that i can burn? is it easy to trash all of the extras and just get the movie and still have the same quality?

i downloaded a bunch of software from 321 studios back when they put everything on an FTP site for free because the courts said they only could sell it for a few more days, so in order for more people to get it, they put it up for free download. glad i did that, now i can make a use for it.

quote:Originally posted by montag The NEC has the best reputation of all the burners listed. The one for sale at newegg is rumored to be able to be upgraded to dual layer with a firmware update. The firmware update is not available yet, but supposedly in the near future you can change this drive from a single layer burner to a dual layer burner.

I've been pretty happy with my NEC 2500 so far.

There is no official firmware upgrade for dual layer yet but here's a beta version:

i installed it.
anyways, i'm having trouble getting what i want onto the dvd. i tried backing up Memento with the supplied DVD+RW and I couldn't get it to work.

I downloaded dvdshrink. how much compression can i use and not see a real difference in quality? after i shrink it, it gives me some .VOB files, but I want to burn this, so how do I get the files needed to burn the DVD?

i also downloaded dvd decrypter, but i'm not sure how that works. i set it up in ISO mode to try and get an image, but it was too big it said. what do i need to do about that?

Also, if I buy an xbox/ps2, get a modchip, can I back up games onto a dvd and play it on the xbox/ps2? at $50 a game, i'd feel much better keeping them stored and using backups.